Darwin's Pious Idea: Why the Ultra-Darwinists and Creationists Both Get It Wrong

Darwin's Pious Idea: Why the Ultra-Darwinists and Creationists Both Get It Wrong

Synopsis

According to British scholar Conor Cunningham, the debate today between religion and evolution has been hijacked by extremists: on one side stand fundamentalist believers who reject evolution outright; on the opposing side are fundamentalist atheists who claim that Darwin's theory rules out the possibility of God.

Both sides are dead wrong, argues Cunningham, who is at once a Christian and a firm believer in the theory of evolution. In Darwin's Pious Idea Cunningham puts forth a trenchant, compelling case for both creation and evolution, drawing skillfully on an array of philosophical, theological, historical, and scientific sources to buttress his arguments.

Excerpt

This is the age of the evolution of Evolution. All thoughts that theEvolutionist works with, all theories and generalizations, have themselves evolved and are now being evolved.

Henry Drummond (1883)

So it happened that in the hour of the final triumph of materialism,the very instrument of it, “evolution,” implicitly transcended theterms of materialism and posed the ontological question anew —when it just seemed settled.

Hans Jonas

Perhaps we can move away from the dreary materialism of muchcurrent thinking with its agenda of a world now open to limitlessmanipulation. Nor need this counter-attack be anti-scientific: farfrom it. Evolution may simply be a fact, yet in need of continuous interpretation.

Simon Conway Morris

Charles Darwin has been considered by many to be an enemy — indeed, the enemy — of religion. His theory of evolution is frequently construed . . .